Once best known for being the creator of the Mega Man and the Street Fighter series, Capcom has become the king of survival-horror. Sure, Alone In The Dark(1992) was the game that started it all, but since that time Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and now Onimusha have risen to the top of the crowded genre. While not the new Resident Evil that fans have eagerly awaited, Onimusha is a very good game, even if it ultimately does little to advance the genre.

Onimusha: Warlords begins with an amazing CG movie following Yoshimoto Imagawa, a warlord determined to march to Kyoto, unify Japan, and crown himself emperor. As Imagawas army rests, a troop of 2,000 soldiers, led by Nobunaga Oda, launches a surprise attack and slaughters Yoshimotos troops. Just as Nobunaga begins to celebrate his victory, an arrow from one of Imagawas few remaining soldiers strikes him in the throat, killing him. This event is witnessed by a young man, Samanosuke Akechi, whos life will soon change forever One year later - Inabayama Castle: Soldiers and workers are beginning to disappear into thin air. Worried by the mysterious disappearances, Princess Yuki sends a desperate plea for help to Samanosuke. When he finally arrives at the castle - he is too late, Princess Yuki has been kidnapped. To make matters worse, upon his arrival, enemy troops begin attacking the castle. As Samanosuke strains to see their leader, he sees that it is none other than Nobunaga, back from the grave and determined to achieve his destiny. At this point you take control of Samanosuke, and you must save the Princess and destroy Nobunaga once and for all.

Graphics:
Since it was originally intended to be on the Playstation, one might expect this game to feature only marginal graphics, but they would certainly be amiss. Halfway through the games development cycle, it was clear that the aging system could not do the title justice, and since Capcom didnt have a survival-horror game in the works for the PS2, it was moved to the new console. From the games breathtaking opening movie, it is clear that this game is much more than a simple enhancement, or a re-worked Playstation game. The CG movie puts anything Ive seen on the console to shame, theres no contest. There are a few other pre-rendered movies throughout the game, but none that equal the beauty of the first movie. Most of the story is told through brief cinemas that utilize the in-game engine. While certainly adequate, they look rather lame when compared with the pre-rendered movies.

Despite the fact that Capcom has proven that they can create real-time environments like those in Code:Veronica, they have decided to go with pre-rendered backgrounds for Onimusha. You wont be seeing any cinematic camera sweeps here, the view simply switches to the next screen. I assume that this decision was made when the game was a Psx title, and it was too late to scrap the look for the PS2. These backgrounds look great, but in this day and age, its a shame to have to wait for the next screen to load just to move three feet, and then have the camera switch to an odd angle, which causes you to lose your bearings. The frequent screen changes and bizarre camera angles caused me to walk through the wrong door on more than one occasion.

Thanks to rich character design and a high polygon count, Onimusha's character models look amazing. Each principal character is composed of 10,000 polygons (just a few less than what I'm made up of - I think). Samanosuke features colorful, historically accurate armor, as well as a number of blood-curdling weapons. Three different swords, a twin-bladed staff, two bows, a matchlock rifle, and three armor types are all available. The bad guys, though there are only a few different kinds, each have very different looks. This enables you to immediately recognize what creature is attacking you, and how he will attack. With the sheer number of enemies attacking at once, not having to squint to tell what is getting ready to strike is a life saver.

Sound:
The games audio is strong in some cases, yet very weak in others. The weakest point is by far the sub-par English voice acting. While its not as bad as what was found in the original Resident Evil, it is pretty awful. As is usually the case, some characters are better than others, but the one that does most of the speaking, Samanosuke, is easily one of the worst. Compounding the problem is the lack of sync between the peoples mouths and the words emanating from them.It appears that no attempt was made to make the dialogue even come close to what was coming out of their mouths. There is an option to revert to the original Japanese dub and use English subtitles, which may please some people, but it didnt help me a whole lot.

The game features the standard monster noises youve come to know over the last few years playing Capcoms games. Grunts, groans, and screams are all adequate, but they could have just as easily been recycled from Code:Veronica - I cant tell the difference. There are some nice ambient sounds that help create the games eerie mood. When you are running through the forest, things sound just like they would deep in a real forest. When wading in shallow water, or walking past a roaring waterfall, the water sounds so close you can almost touch it, especially when playing in surround sound.

Music isnt used too much in the game, but when it is, it generally helps to add tension to an already tense situation. A fast piece will spur you into battle, while a slower song will clue you in to a surprise that may or may not be lurking around the corner.

Gameplay:
This is the part of the game that was difficult to score. On one hand, theres almost nothing new, and it is VERY short. I beat it in under six hours, and while granted thats two more than it took to beat Zone of Enders, its still darn short. On the other hand, the game is a blast to play. Since you arent forced to keep an eye on your ammo supply (Swords dont have bullets, silly), any and every enemy is fair game for the tip of your sword. Thanks to the respawning enemies, there are plenty of enemies for you to disembowel.

The game controls just like any other RE game, which means we are still saddled with an antiquated control scheme that refuses to acknowledge the existence of the analog stick. By this point in my gaming career, the awkward controls arent much of a bother, but those who have never played a game like this might find themselves forced to use two different controllers. One controller to play the game and one to throw around the room in frustration at having walked into a flaming pillar due to poor controls. Im going to write a letter to Capcom and it will say this:

Dear Capcom person,

Why do I have to push a stupid button to walk up or down stairs? It makes me want to cry.

Aaron Thomas

In addition to the control scheme and pre-rendered backgrounds, there are numerous other similarities between Onimusha and the Resident Evil series. The menu screens have the same look to them, and the item and map screens are exactly the same. I actually laughed out loud at the lack of originality when I first acquired an herb. Cant they think of something a little bit different? Call it a plant or something, but for Petes sake, dont call it the same thing you called it in a totally different game. Youll also spend a large amount of time running into locked doors and then back tracking to find its key. And like other RE titles, you can bet your bottom dollar that when you come across a statue, its got something you need. One thing that I expected that I found very little of was scares. There were only one or two times where things jumped out at you and really startled you. The game is creepy, but not scary, which is good or bad depending on your point of view.

As I mentioned earlier, the biggest difference in this game and a RE title is the fact that youve got a sword. Gone are the times when you are forced to run for your life to avoid enemy contact. If you want to make it to the end, youd better learn to embrace combat. After killing a bad guy, you can use the enchanted gauntlet on Samanosuke's right arm to steal their soul. A meter on the top of the screen shows how many youve collected, which can then be used at save mirrors to enhance your weapons or health items. Using this method, you can not only increase your sword and magic capability, but also transform herbs into medicine, bullets into burst rounds, and arrows into flaming arrows. Although I really enjoyed this feature it is a key factor in the game's brevity. Thanks to the respawning enemies it is possible to level up your weapons very early into the game. I didnt spend much extra time trying to gain power, yet I had all of my weapons maxed out two-thirds into the game. Since I had nothing left to enhance, this left me with a soul meter that was filled twenty times over by the time I had finished the game. It also made the game extremely easy due to how powerful my sword and its orbs were. Except for the occasional puzzle, I breezed through the game.

Speaking of puzzles, there arent too many, but I felt that a few of them deserved mention here. The infamous water puzzle that Ive heard so much about is one of them. I remembered reading desperate cries for help in various message boards, and a friend of mine told me Id go nuts trying to figure it out. The water puzzle is essentially a sliding puzzle where you have to slide the pieces around until they form a picture. I got it on my second try, which is fortunate, because the previous save point is quite far away. I got lucky on the puzzle, but for many people, this puzzle will raise their blood pressure to dangerous levels. I applaud Capcom for sticking a challenging puzzle in the game, but a save point closer to it may have been in order. You dont want people to quit playing the game just because of one puzzle thats very early in the game.

The other puzzles were ones that involved containers that would release items upon successful completion of the puzzle. The first one is a simple number puzzle where you rotate the numbers until they are in numerical order. The number of tries that you get is dependent on how mixed up the numbers are. They arent too difficult, but it is a very satisfying feeling when you solve them. The last puzzle that I will mention is the translator box. This asks you to translate a brief bit of text based on journals and tablets you have found during your adventure. They dont appear to be difficult at first, but after a bit, you have more things to read, and remembering the symbols is harder than it looks. I liked the gradual increase in difficulty that these puzzles offered, it was a nice constant throughout the game, and its a unique way to give out items.

Replay:
Since this game is unlikely to take up more than six hours of your time, I cant give it much of a replay score. Another deduction comes from how easy it is. Outside of the occasional puzzle, and two difficult bosses, theres nowhere to get stuck in the game. I do appreciate the fact that Capcom didnt involve a tremendous amount of backtracking in the game to artificially lengthen it, but the experience is too short. After beating it and accomplishing certain tasks like finding fluorite, some new modes open up, but they didnt compel me to play the game over and over again.

Despite its brevity and relatively unoriginal gameplay, Onimusha is a good game that is very fun to play. To tell the truth, it might be too fun for its own good. I was so into chopping up bad guys, and chasing down the mysterious demon god, that I beat the game in two sittings, which is only one more than it took me to beat The Bouncer. Is it worth fifty bucks? It really depends on how desperate for a good game you are. In my case, Id say yes, because after all of the miserable games Ive played lately, this game was truly a breath of fresh air.